The cabinet has approved 6 bills, which authorise the finance minister to act on the matter of earlier repayment of the debt to six members of the Paris Club for a total sum of around EUR 4.3bn, deputy finance minister Wieslaw Szczuka announced on Tuesday.
In January, Poland expressed its wish to repay earlier its debt of EUR 12.3bn to the 16 Paris Club countries. The Paris Club debt is a "legacy" of the communist era, and in accordance with agreements, should be almost totally repaid by 2009. "The cabinet has approved the texts of six bills, which authorise the finance minister to act on the matter of earlier debt repayment to six countries. The countries are Germany, Great Britain, Holland, Denmark and Finland. In relation to these five countries the entire debt will be repaid, however the sixth country is Canada, and here the repayment will cover only one seventh of the debt to this country," Szczuka said after the cabinet's
sitting.
"The total sum to be repaid earlier is around EUR 3.3bn and this payment will be made on
March 31, this is around 26.4% of the total debt to the Paris Club. However, on March 31 we also pay
over EUR 900mn in regular capital payments, which means that the total outlay will reach almost 29%
of the debt," he added. ISB